Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Feeling down

I'm starting to not feel too hopeful about my garden. I think the late start I got really doomed me. I started the garden a month ago. Everything seems to be growing very slowly, especially some of my root crops. The radishes should be almost done now but I don't think they are, the greens are still tiny little seedlings and I haven't checked the roots but I doubt they are very big at all. Onions seemed to be ok at first but some seem to just die suddenly with no root. The carrots are still tiny tiny seedlings, though I'm going to give them some more time before declaring them a failure. The potatoes seem to be doing great, growing like crazy, hopefully they will at least come through. Lettuce and spinach are not doing well, still tiny seedlings that are slowly dying out. Most of my spices/herbs never even sprouted so I will probably go buy some plants. The peppers, peas, tomatoes and corn seem to be doing ok though. I swear the tomatoes have grown a few inches in the last few days. Ever since they flowered and I trimmed some of the lower stems they seem to be doing better. The pepper plants are slowly getting bigger, though nowhere near getting peppers yet. The pea plants are cute little plants, so I'm hopeful about them. And the corn seems to do well with the heat we've been having. So maybe my garden won't be a complete failure this year. But I'm already making a mental list of what to do and not do for next year. First and foremost is to start much earlier! I think a lot of my problem is that I planted a lot of spring crops too late so it is too hot for them to grow properly.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

3 Week checkup

So it's been a few weeks, about time I gave a garden update! Things are sprouting up all over :) The only things that haven't are some of the herbs/spices. If they don't sprout by next week I'll go buy some starts. Also, the spinach isn't sprouting much either, but I wasn't really expecting too much from the lettuce and spinach since they got a later start than they really should have. The corn is starting to come up nicely. I finally went and got some bell pepper plants because the seeds never sprouted. The carrots finally started sprouting and the potatoes are also coming up. So most everything is starting to grow :) Even the strawberry plants are flourishing with tons of new leaves, but still no flowers or fruit. And, the rose bushes are flowering a ton! Just this last week they've started and we've got some gorgeous big blossoms already blooming all over the south bush and a few on the north bush. I'm loving having rose bushes. I had to cut them down to about 4ft this spring cuz they were way overgrown and they've already gotten over 7ft. Here are some pictures:

Pretty roses:


Rose bushes:

Garden: (the white material is what I use to shade the lettuce and spinach during the hottest parts of the day since they really don't like too much heat)

Carrots:

Radishes on top, onions on bottom:

Lettuce on right (and further left not pictured) and spinach on left:

Green and red peppers:

Peas:

Tomatoes: (I had to put up the cages and netting to keep out whatever critter was nibbling the stems off)

Corn: